NASA Memory Foam

It began over forty years ago, in 1966. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
contracted with Stencel Aero Engineering Corporation to develop a product that would improve the
safety of aircraft cushions for crash and vibration protection. Two aeronautical engineers who worked
together on this project, Charles A. Yost and Chiharu “Chuck” Kubokawa, came up with an open-cell,
polymeric foam material that had high-energy absorption. They discovered that this special foam not
only offered better impact protection, it also improved passenger comfort. NASA was very pleased
with this discovery, but this memory foam formulation was not yet suited to consumers.

Three years later, in 1969, Charles Yost formed Dynamic Systems, Inc. to develop and commercialize
this temperature-sensitive, “temper-foam”, technology. Moving beyond aircraft seating, the company
later developed medical cushions and seating systems for the severely disabled. The company’s
product sales came mainly from the medical industry. However, in 1974, Dynamic Systems sold the
original manufacturing rights to this technology but continued to develop improved second and third
generation visco elastic memory foam materials for other industries.

The big turning point was in the early 1980’s when NASA released the visco elastic foam formulationto the public. Fagerdala World Foams of Sweden was one of a few manufacturers willing and able towork with the difficult foam manufacturing process. In 1989, after almost 10 years of research and development, Fagerdala perfected the visco elastic foam.